


Baby, Count Me Out

by MichellesPenScratchz



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Girls' Night Out, Pre-Tales from the Borderlands, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MichellesPenScratchz/pseuds/MichellesPenScratchz
Summary: All Sasha has to do for this con is win an Open Mic Night. Or so Fiona claims.
Relationships: Fiona & Sasha (Borderlands)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	Baby, Count Me Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thirty2flavors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirty2flavors/gifts).



> Happy birthday, [thirty2flavors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirty2flavors/pseuds/thirty2flavors)!

Somewhere above Hollow Point, a well-loved and rusty old caravan perched overlooking the den of vice and vileness below. Like a pair of knowing old eyes, the dual panels of the windshield glowed with the faint light within.

Safe from prying ears, two crafty sisters sat inside the caravan at their worn red crescent booth and concocted their latest plan.

“Okay, let’s run through it one more time,” Fiona said.

Sasha drew in a deep breath. “We’re the La Fleur Sisters. We used to be backup musicians for Digby Vermouth, but we ran into creative differences, and now we’re starting our solo careers,” she recited in one long exhale. “And everyone knows a musician’s first step to hitting the big time is to win over their own home planet, so after our last galactic tour with Digby we came back to our roots on Pandora to start making a name for ourselves.”

“Attagirl.” Fiona winked. “With a steel trap like that, you should have no problem memorizing the song.” She handed her sister the sheet music.

Sasha glanced over the sheet music, silently mouthed some of the words, then towards the door of the caravan. “So, I guess we’re just waiting for Felix. What’s his angle in this? Band manager? Roadie? The talent scout in the audience who just happens to discover us?”

“Nope. No Felix this time,” Fiona said. “He’s back at the safehouse. This one’s all us. You can warm up on the way there.”

Sasha blinked. “Hold on, I actually have to sing? Thought you said you got a recording to lip-sync to.”

“I got a recording of the _piano music_ ,” Fiona clarified, pulling the item in question from her coat pocket and setting it on the table. “That’s for me to hide under the piano while I ‘play.’” She made quotation fingers around the word. “But, it _is_ an Open Mic Night, after all. It’s gotta be convincing.”

Sasha glanced over the sheet music again, picked up the tape recorder and hit Play. A sultry piano melody issued forth.

“Okay, then.” She stretched out her hands in a presentation gesture. “Look out Pandora—it’s the grand debut of the La Fleur Sisters!” She smiled enigmatically.

“That’s the spirit!” Fiona commended and climbed the small staircase leading up to the caravan driver’s seat. With that the caravan sputtered to life and lurched away towards the mouth of the cave, bound for an Open Mic Night in a bar one town over.

————————-

The stars were bright by the time they arrived. Fiona grinded the caravan to halt in front of their destination. With the engine silenced, she could more clearly hear her sister rehearsing her part along with the music on the recorder.

“Mmm hmm hmm hmm—dance cheek to cheek,” Sasha half-hummed, half-sang. “Mmm hmm hmm mmm hmm—all night long…”

“Got it down?” Fiona asked.

“Yeah, think so,” Sasha replied, stopping the tape. “But you know how it is—you’re always least sure right at Go Time.”

“C’mon. You’ll slay ‘em,” Fiona assured her. She took the tape and rewound it to the beginning as they disembarked, then tucked it away discreetly in her coat as they entered the bar.

The decor was best described as “Maliwan Meets Jakobs, Meets Visibly Trying To Bring A Touch Of Culture To Pandora.” The bar and tabletops were all polished wood with brass trimmings. The lighting was a moody neon purple hue. An ambient mist of smoke hung above the tables scattering the floor. Behind the bar to left-hand side of the entrance, a well dressed and willowy woman mixed expensive-looking drinks. Straight across from the doorway, at the back, sat a raised and even more moodily lit expanse of stage with a piano and a microphone awaiting use.

Fiona scribbled on a sign-in sheet to make the grand arrival of the La Fleur Sisters for Open Mic Night known to their eagerly awaiting public. Then she and Sasha took a seat at one of the center tables.

“So, Fi,” Sasha whispered, her eyes sweeping around the room. “You think it might be time to tell me who the mark is?”

Fiona nudged her head in the direction of the bar, towards the well-dressed woman. “See that lady with the martini shaker? That’s the one you have to impress. She’s judging this Open Mic Night. And I’m pretty sure you’re just her type.”

“Heh. Aren’t I everyone’s?” Sasha joked cynically, but turned to smile and flutter her eyelashes at Miss Martini Shaker all the same.

She was rewarded with a blown kiss.

“So, all I have to do is win?” she asked, turning back to Fiona.

“Yup. Piece of cake, right?” Fiona scooted her chair back to recline easily.

“Then what?”

“Then you just follow my lead, and leave the rest to me.”

Sasha sighed. “Could you be any more vague?”

“I promise it’ll be worth it.” Fiona stretched her long legs and crossed them at the ankle. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

Sasha’s chin sank into her hand, and she drummed her fingers on the table. “Do I have to answer?”

The acts ahead of them weren’t exactly what one would call tough to follow. There was a Psycho trio whose rock ballad consisted of three parts guttural growling to one part shouted gibberish, with a grand finale of smashing their own poorly-tuned instruments on the floor. Then there was an impression comedian whose renditions of Handsome Jack, Marcus Kincaid, and Mr. Torgue elicited a few pity laughs at best. Next, there wasa Claptrap unit who only recently acquired a penchant for opera and felt the need to share it with the world. A few shattered glasses and eardrums later, and the disenchanted yellow robot was removed from the stage.

Finally, a bar employee dressed in a suit and a reasonably clean and surprisingly tasteful Psycho mask approached the mic.

“And now, for your listening pleasure,” he announced. “This scintillating sisterly duo recently parted ways with the living legend Digby Vermouth himself, and journeyed back to their roots here on humble Pandora to give you all a taste of their refined sound. Put your hands together for the one (or two) and only…Fiona and Sasha La Fleur!”

To the tune of sparse applause, the sisters took the stage. Sasha positioned herself in front of the piano bench and courtesied extravagantly, drawing the patrons’ attention long enough for Fiona to retrieve her tape recorder and place it discreetly under the bench. As it began to play, Fiona tapped the keys lightly in an imitation of the melody. No one was likely to notice the deception, because soon all eyes were on Sasha.

“If you've got romance on your mind,” the younger sister crooned, a spring in her step as she strutted around to the side of the piano. “If you'd like to stroll hand in hand.” Her fingers walked coquettishly along the piano’s top, while she tossed her hair in a sideways meaningful glance towards Miss Martini Shaker. “If you want to cuddle in the moonlight, and whisper, ‘ain't love grand?’”

Brazenly, she jumped onto the piano, legs crossed at the knee and shoulders swaying to the rhythm of the song. “If you want someone to buy that sweet talk that you guys all love to spout… Baby, count me out!”

The second verse followed in very much the same dulcet fashion. “If you want to dance cheek to cheek.” Sasha’s foot paddled to the melody. She cast a shadow in the bar’s purple neon lights that swayed in tandem with her like a silent backup dancer. “Then go home and talk all night long.”

She leaned back on the piano ever so slightly, until her fingers bumped a metal vase full of fake flowers in the center. “If you want to send somebody flowers, and share a stupid song.” She took hold of the vase and sat back up, coyly brushing the false petals under her chin. “If you want a woman who believes that you're what her life's all about… Baby, count me out!”

_Clang._

Fiona jumped slightly at the abrupt clatter as Sasha tossed the vase behind her onto the floor. She glanced up at the audience and clicked her tongue twice at the side of her mouth, as if she’d known that would be part of the act all along. Then she returned to concentrate on “playing” the piano. It never ceased to amaze her how much of a natural her sister was at this.

Sasha continued to demonstrate her flair throughout the bridge of the song. She’d been there, she’d done that, she professed to a smoky room full of thirsty ears drinking in her voice like brandy. No one, least of all Miss Martini Shaker, seemed deterred by her insistence that they forget the thoughts they harbored, and just regard her as their sister.

Only one verse remained, and the captive listeners reveled in Sasha’s supposed disinterest in sappy cards and poetry.

“And if you have plans to fall in love, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Baby, count me out.” She raised her arm and her head high, driving the point home. “That’s what I said, I said Baby…count me out!”

She slid from the piano and ended with “Hound dog,” over her shoulder. The tape below the bench stopped, and so did the charade of Fiona’s fingers.

The floor erupted with cheers and wolf whistles. The only ones in the bar who didn’t appear to be thrilled were the ones whose acts had to follow the sensational La Fleur Sisters. To their credit, they made a valiant effort after Sasha and Fiona had relinquished the floor. But when Miss Martini Shaker announced the Open Mic Night winners, it came as no surprise that the sisterly duo recently emerged from under Digby Vermouth’s soulful wing took the prize.

That prize, it turned out, was free food and drinks for the rest of the night.

Fiona and Sasha took their places of honor at the bar, two appetizing plates set before them and their first tantalizing, chilly glasses of what promised to be many.

“So what’s, next?” Sasha asked between chomps of a chili cheeseburger with onions and pickles.

“Now, we sit here, we eat our food, we get stinking drunk, and then we go home.” Fiona proclaimed. “Or, we sleep it off in the caravan. You know, wherever the night takes us.”

Sasha’s eyes narrowed. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. Welcome to our night out, Sash! You gonna drink your cocktail, or what?"

The remnants of the burger dropped onto Sasha’s plate. “Dammit Fiona, I swear, Felix has rubbed off on you. You could have just told me this is what we were doing.”

“Like I said in the caravan, Sash—it had to be convincing. Don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on leaving this bar until I’ve drunk at least a hundred dollars worth of their off-world hooch. Figured the surest way to win it all for free was for you to think this was a job.”

Sasha scoffed. “So what you’re saying is there’s no score? We drove all the way out here just to eat and drink?”

“ _Just_ to eat and drink? Really?” Fiona retorted. “You know, this is exactly the kind of thing sisters on other planets do. Call it a taste of the better days ahead for us. And those better days are coming, believe me. But why shouldn’t we have a little fun now, like anyone else?”

Sasha’s expression relaxed almost imperceptibly at Fiona’s unique brand of reasoning. “This had better be the best damn cocktail I have ever tasted,” she said.

“If it’s not, I’ll eat my hat.”

“Oh, really laying it on the line there, huh?”

“You know how attached I am to it.”

Conceding that, Sasha drank the concoction before her. In spite of herself, she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply as the flavor cascaded down her throat. “Wow,” she murmured, and her eyes fluttered open. “For the record, I’m still pissed at you,” she said. “But after a few of these, I’ll get over it.”

“Awesome. Get cracking then.”

They drank. The moody lighting of the smoke-filled bar became gradually more mellow in the jovial haze that soon began to set in.

“You really do have a great voice, you know,” Fiona said, downing a refill. “Maybe we really _can_ get out of the game, and win ourselves a big fat record label. We’ll make even Digby Vermouth jealous of our overnight success.”

“You’d have to learn to actually play,” Sasha replied. “That tape jams just once, and the jig is up.”

All of the sisters’ cares and concerns had fled for the evening, and they laughed. At each other. At themselves. At the whole of the cesspit they lived on, known as Pandora.

**Author's Note:**

> The song is [Count Me Out](https://youtu.be/LZZHnNJ6ctk), from All Dogs Go To Heaven 2.


End file.
